Smile
by MidnightAbyss
Summary: "So, babe, how'd you come to be in the Underground?"  "If I didn't know better, I'd say Torn had a thing for pretty faces," Jinx wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, leering at her and then at Jak.


**MA here. It's been forever, I know. College is currently kicking my butt. I'm just this mass of Physics and Calculus-induced bruises and IT HURTS. If I could just read and write and draw forever I'd be a happy camper, but...yeah. You guys get it.**

**Anyway, here's my vague offering to prove I'm still alive. I'm just too caught up in the Merlin fandom, and Tuesdays is relegated solely to NCIS-loving, so...yeah. I had this done, like, last year and only just got around to cleaning it up and posting it. Have fun.**

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><p>"So, babe, how'd you come to be in the Underground?" Daxter asked, swinging down onto the bar from Jak's shoulder and helping himself to the unopened bottle she'd just placed before another customer, making her turn around to pull out another one with a sheepish glance at the disgruntled man.<p>

"If I didn't know better, I'd say Torn had a thing for pretty faces," Jinx wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, leering at her and then at Jak. Sig made sure to lean over casually and slap the smoker's head with one of his broad, warm grins. She ignored it, used to it from most of the customers that frequented any bar, but the question caused her mind to wander off into not-so-old memories that had once been carefully shut away for later.

_There was panic on his face, the grunt leaping for him as he frantically pulled on the gun's trigger with no reaction. She knew he would die without the weapon. He was screaming as teeth and claws ripped his body apart, but there was nothing she could do, nothing she would do. She didn't want to die like him._

She was not once part of the Krimzon Guard. She'd never made weapons for them. Never met Baron Praxis, or any of the nobility really.

_Her father had made weapons for the Krimzon Guard. She knew everything about all of their weapons. Her father had taught her. It was the only thing he had that he could teach his only daughter, in hopes that this would make her useful and spare her more pain than necessary. Her mother had hated it. Had hated when he spoke of locking and targeting mechanisms and precision instruments to their scruffy little blonde. So mother taught her about boys and flirting and makeup and fashion, in hopes that one day, she'd be loved too._

Giggling at more of Daxter's silly drunk antics—Jak was looking supremely uncomfortable, Sig grinning and struggling to contain his laughter all at the same time, and Jinx not even bothering to contain his own riotous laughter—she passed a beer down to one of the regulars that stopped by the bar at night. Thought back to the days when she didn't have friends, when she was just another starving oppressed face in the starving oppressed crowd.

_Nimble fingers pulled the weapon from the hands of the fresh corpse, worked quickly at the firing mechanisms within to unstick it, and blew away the metalhead that had just finished off another guard and was coming for her. "Damn fine with a gun, missy. Where'd you learn that out here?" a rough scratchy voice called from somewhere to her left. If it weren't for the armor, she'd have thought he was another survivor from the crowd he was so skinny. It took a moment for her to pick out the tattoos on the blood-smeared face. _

She ducked down behind the counter for a moment, grabbing the bottle of whiskey to refill Jinx's glass, before returning to idly scratching Daxter's back and retreating down memory lane.

_Little Tess didn't always have food. Her toys comprised of whatever her father snuck home from the weapons factory to show her—but they had to keep those hidden—and the dolly her mother found tossed away by the upper class. Her clothes were old and her mother had stitched up the holes in them many times. But little Tess had a mom and dad. She had toys. She had clothes. She had food more often than others. So little Tess smiled. Because she had all sorts of reasons to smile. Because little Tess was happy._

"Tessy, babe, you's gotz such a purty smile. Shiiiiiiiiinnnny whiiiiite teeeeeefffffffffffffssss…."

_So when an older Tess met Torn, she smiled. She was terrified, but she had a weapon and a new friend and she was _still alive_. She still had all sorts of reasons to smile._

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><p><strong>I'm not going to demand R&amp;R, but I would certainly appreciate Concrit. Concrit is love, people. Because I just can't stand how terrible my writing used to be. Thanks for reading.<strong>


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